Vanderbilt report: Heart attack rates drop for Tennessee men

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WMOT) -- The Tennessee Men’s Health Report Card compiled by Vanderbilt University is out this week and provides some good news.

Report author Dr. Derek Griffith says men living in Tennessee tend to be less healthy than their counterparts in other states. For example, average male life expectancy in Tennessee is about two years less than the national average.

But Dr. Griffth says this week’s report does reveal at least one positive trend.

“Heart Disease mortality is going down, so the rates of men dying from heart disease, or particularly, from things say related to heart attacks have gone down.”

Griffith says he did something different with this year’s study. He broke the data down by region for West, Middle and East Tennessee.

“In West Tennessee the leading causes of death are a little different. Men have a shorter life expectancy in West Tennessee and East Tennessee than they do in Middle, for example.”

Griffth notes, for example, that for men in West Tennessee the leading cause of death tends to be homicide. In the rest of the state accidental deaths are more common, primarily traffic fatalities.

According to Dr. Griffith, the Tennessee Men’s Health Report Card is one of the few state level studies of its kind in the nation. He says his hope is that the data can be used to influence health care policy.